They shared access for a while. Most of the data, numbers and information on the phone was his. The number belonged to the store. And the Palm account, the one that backs up the settings and data... that belonged to her. Oh no... that's not the problem!
But as with anyone who loves an ADD sufferer can tell you, the shiny wore off quickly. A short time later, the boss got tired of using it but not really using it. Apparently he'd already showed off to every Apple iPhone user he knew. So he handed it over. Oh no... that's not the problem!
So she tried to unactivate the store number. And reactivate it on her own number. But it didn't work. No! wait! It really, really didn't work! Now that's the problem!
When you first turn on a Pre, it initializes and asks you to create an online profile with Palm.
The phone was active on her number. The Sprint account was active on the store number. And the Palm profile had yet another! It was a traditional Mexican standoff! No way to win at this.
The phone could not get beyond the Palm login because it had no Internet connectivity via the phone's EVDO network. She tried everything she knew... and given that this phone was just released, that wasn't much.
- Rebooting the phone didn't work.
- Removing the battery didn't work.
- Holding down the power button down and moving the ringer switch six times didn't work.
- Holding Volume Down, Power Button and executing software on the phone didn't work.
- Rooting the phone didn't work.
- Turning on WiFi didn't work.
- Sending a full reset from Palm's support site didn't work.
No matter what she tried, the phone just stared back at her looking for a userid and password for the Palm login that it couldn't use.
The, in the wee hours of the morning, she stumbled upon a simple number:
- ##786#
That worked. It reset her phone and allowed her to reconnect to the Internet, the Palm support site and set it up once again. This time on her own number.
So my question is, should the phone be dependent on over the air recovery? What if I'm in a remote spot like my company's computer room and this phone suddenly loses its signal? That's been known to happen. I think I'm going to classify this as a bug! Or at least a shortcoming of the provisioning process.
